“what is it that you adventure for?” the merchant aboard the chocobo carriage asked. “glory, fame, or wealth?”

“the thrills,” she said. “the adventure, the exploration.”

his eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled at her, then laughed. “then become a great adventurer i can brag about meeting one day.”

if only she knew, at that time, what it entailed.

backstory

“you will become the high priestess,” her father sounded so sure, so proud. rimi can still remember the way his eyes crinkled. “the ruby princess will choose you.”

she did.

yumiya was born an only child to jikkan, an elder priest of sui-no-sato, and his loving wife. however, yumiya’s birth was complicated and strenuous on her mother, causing her to go into a state of shock afterwards. to get treatment, her mother was sent up to the surface where hopefully better medicine and chirurgeons could attend to her, but she came back three years later worse than before. her eyes blinded and her mind broken, jikkan could not bear to live in a house with an empty-headed wife and the child that made her so. thus did he leave to serve the palace, and sent back only stipends to support his family.

for as long as yumiya could remember, she was the one taking care of her mother and not the other way around. fixing her meals, mending her clothes, even taking care of the finances and writing letters—all of it was done by her hand. at the age of seven, her mother passed away in the night, and yumiya found herself alone in the house. it was then that jikkan returned to steer her towards the path of becoming sui-no-sato’s next high priestess.

from a young age, yumiya was an unparalleled genius in sui-no-sato, able to read, write, and memorize the core beliefs and tenets of the city below the waves when she was only seven years old. books stacked high around her, and she went through every single one as if possessed. her childhood afterwards was filled with practices, rituals, and memorization like no other, if only so she could grow up to be the high priestess to the ruby princess of sui-no-sato, her father’s dream.

however, the books she read told tales, stories, and histories of the world above, and yumiya finally found herself wanting something for the first time in her life: to leave the city and experience the world above. and so, taken by curiosity, she began to seek out more and more books about the world above. her favorite subject became the xaela of the azim steppes, and the stories of her ancestors who used to live there.

at eighteen, she had gone through every single book that existed within sui-no-sato.

her father tried to entice her with the promise of a treasure trove of books within the ruby palace with which she could read to her heart’s content once she became the high priestess. however, yumiya was extremely aware now of what that duty entailed—to serve the ruby princess forever and ever, until her dying breath, and to never leave the palace ever again as a result.

torn between fleeing and staying, yumiya knew that if she stepped even one foot out of sui-no-sato, she would never be allowed back in ever again. she would be exiled and deemed an outsider, and sui-no-sato was all she ever knew.

when the time came for the ruby princess to choose her next high priestess, yumiya was pushed forward by jikkan and chosen, trained as she was from such a young age to succeed the role.

that day, in a spur of the moment, yumiya grabbed what little she could and chose to leave sui-no-sato behind, seeking adventure out on the surface that she’s read for all her life about in books. trading away all of her koban for passage aboard a merchant ship, she sailed away to far eorzea.

knowing she would be disowned, exiled, and shunned by her father for leaving, yumiya chose to change her name to avoid any association with him for his sake.

from then on she would be known as rimi kalathai.